


Sartorial Differences (The Passion In Your Fashion Remix)

by Aris Merquoni (ArisTGD)



Category: Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: Continuity What Continuity, M/M, Podfic Available, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-23
Updated: 2011-04-23
Packaged: 2017-10-18 14:15:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/189734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArisTGD/pseuds/Aris%20Merquoni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor asks for a favor, the Master asks for some compensation, change is a good thing, and Time Lords (most of them, anyway) aren't much good at recognizing situational irony.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sartorial Differences (The Passion In Your Fashion Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aralias](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aralias/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Sartorial Differences (or 'Why the Doctor got his blue coat and other stories')](https://archiveofourown.org/works/188144) by [aralias](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aralias/pseuds/aralias). 



Time Lords, (the stuffier Time Lords will happily tell you at the drop of a hat or a hankie square,) are beings of pure intellectual contemplation. They exist to scrutinize every aspect of the universe and bend their intellects to understanding and predicting it. They do nothing so crass as 'meddle' and they do nothing so physical as 'interfere.'

Time Lords do not engage in physical pursuits or luxuries. They do not 'pleasure themselves.' They do not 'hook up' or trade 'favours,' sexual or otherwise. They do not rut like animals on the console room floor of a stolen TARDIS in the snatched moments between paradoxes, fingers tangled in each others' hair and biting and scratching one another with unmanicured nails because it's easier, more primal, more _accurate_ than putting feelings into words.

That would be uncouth.

* * *

Time Lords (most of them, anyway) don't have a lot of fun.

* * *

When the Master gets the Doctor's coat away from him, at first he's not sure what he is going to do with it. For a time he just marvels, as though it's an artifact from a far-distant and particularly taste-deprived civilization.

He's in a body that shares only distant relation to Gallifrey, so he doesn't have the full field of Time Lord senses available to him, but he's certain that if his senses of temporal fungibility and rhythmic distinction were active they would be just as offended as his senses of sight, touch, and (he tests experimentally) smell. It isn't just the wildly clashing patterns and colours, nor the hostility of the textures, or that it smells like the last three places the Doctor had been imprisoned. There is something actively in the fabric that dislikes him very much--and while in some dialects that would be either a comment on his own state of mind or a rueful exaggeration, the Master isn't sure that constant exposure to the Doctor doesn't actually instill inanimate objects with an active antipathy towards his person.

Though again, while it does smell like the last few places the Doctor has been imprisoned, it also still smells like the Doctor--and that brings back memories, not necessarily unfond, of that time they were tied up back-to-back in that mining colony on Xeres 3, or when they were trapped in that cave-in on Tremmault, or...

It isn't fair, he thinks as he stomps back to his room, that that cursed Time Lord--he throws the wretched coat on his bed and peels off his gloves--can do this to him--his own coat and trousers land on a chair, and he climbs onto his bed and does not, most certainly does not bury his face in the coat, he turns onto his back and shoves off his pants like a civilized being before taking his shaft in hand with the firm grip he likes. And he will not admit to reaching out and digging his fingers into the repulsive fabric of the multicolored, internally-clashing outerwear as he comes, though afterward he has to flex his hand in order to relax his grip.

He throws the coat under his bed until he can think of something better to do with it.

* * *

The Doctor really liked-- _likes_ \--that coat. As he goes through the TARDIS' wardrobe in search of a replacement, he realizes he really isn't going to find anything else quite like it.

He harrumphs and sits down on a chair and stares at the racks of clothes spread out in front of him. It's just that the coat is so wonderful. It makes him feel like the time he snuck a bunch of Earth fashion magazines out of the library and into his and Koschei's room at the academy, and they spent hours staring at photo spreads on carefully reproduced glossy paper-like metaprint. Giddy colours and all sorts of possibilities that didn't look like dour, dreary robes with peripheral-vision limiting collars. Shape! Colour! Pattern! Texture!

And the coat--the whole outfit, really--is just so distracting. It makes people look at him and underestimate him all at once, and it cheers the room up immensely when he walks in. He likes that.

But he doesn't like it enough to have the TARDIS just duplicate it--that would look desperate. And the last thing he wants to do is to retrieve his fellow rogue Time Lord from the care of the Chancellor of Gallifrey after he's so helpfully gotten the timeline back in order while looking desperate.

He realizes that he's thinking of his 'repaying the Master for saving his life at his trial' rendezvous as a _date_ , and picks out the most depressing thing in his closet in response.

Evelyn Smythe raises an eyebrow over her knitting when he comes storming into the console room. "Blue, Doctor? That makes for a change."

"I'm in mourning," the Doctor announces, "for my self-respect." He punches new coordinates into the console almost at random and pulls down on the helmic regulator.

"Well, the colour suits you very nicely," Evelyn says.

"Really?" He runs his hand down the lapel, smiles at the faint sheen of the fabric. "Well, I suppose it is rather good on me, isn't it? Slimming, it's supposed to be."

"Let's not get too carried away," Evelyn says. "Now, where are we going to next?"

* * *

Time Lords consider mental contemplation and the strengthening of the psychic and intellectual skills to be the highest achievement possible. Not having a physical form hasn't stopped several Time Lords from publishing papers, composing theorems, and in one notable instance, arguing for three different sides in a complex intellectual trademark lawsuit before a tribunal of the High Council.

For the Master, being trapped in the Matrix while the Doctor sorted out the paperwork was sheer unremitting hell.

The Doctor was saved from execution by the High Council. (Good.) The timeline was saved from summary destruction. (Better.) The Master was released from the Matrix into the Doctor's care. (Neutral so far.) The Doctor returned him to his own TARDIS, the promise of the return of his coat leading him to follow the Master inside. (Good enough.)

" _Well?_ " the Doctor demands as he sweeps into the control room, arms wide. "Where is it?"

Hours upon hours of sitting around in the Matrix, waiting for the Doctor's _help_ to get free, after doing him a _favour_... "Where is what?" he responds mildly.

"My _coat_ , what do you think I'm talking about?"

"There are nine hundred and forty-two rooms in this TARDIS," the Master says mildly. "You're welcome to search as many of them as you like. Actually, if you run across the billiards room I'd appreciate it if you tell me where it's wound up."

"You'd _appreciate_ it if I found your _billiards_ room?" the Doctor splutters.

The Master raises his eyebrows and turns calmly to face the other Time Lord. "Yes," he says. "It'd be doing me a _favour_." He pauses for a moment. "A _great_ favour."

The Doctor is biting the inside of his cheek and looking incredibly sour. The Master smirks at his expression and waits. "A favour,"

"Possibly enough of a favour to make me forgive you for getting me caught by the CIA," the Master says, biting off every final consonant he can get his teeth around. "But if you'd rather not put in the effort, you know where to find the door."

The Doctor looks stung. "Well," he says. "Well. In that case, I'll just be off."

"Goodbye, Doctor."

"Goodbye."

After a few moments during which the Doctor does not start moving toward the door, the Master raises his eyebrows again. "Yes?"

"Oh, _fine_ ," the Doctor snaps, and comes around the console toward the Master.

This is what he's been waiting for, and it's all the sweeter when it's the Doctor who snapped first, who gave in to that desire that is part lust and part anger and part knowing each other far too well. The Doctor's hands cradle his head and dig into his scalp while the Doctor's mouth presses hotly against his. And the noise the Doctor makes when the Master bites down on the other Time Lord's lip isn't exactly one of displeasure, and incredibly satisfying even though they're still both fully clothed.

"I suppose if you were still wearing your old ensemble," the Master comments as he runs his hands down the Doctor's back to grip his arse, "I would be attempting to get you naked all the more quickly."

"Oh, do shut up about my clothes," the Doctor says, pulling at the Master's jacket buttons. "As though black velvet on black wool is the height of the season--"

The Master reaches up and grabs a satisfying fistful of the Doctor's dandelion-puff hair. "Black," he says, giving the Doctor's head a yank, "is classic." He tugs again, and the Doctor's expression goes from pained to acerbic.

"I'm certainly not going to--" the Doctor complains just before a third tug from the Master's hand jerks him down to one knee at least. "Now, really--"

"Don't even think about biting," the Master says, undoing his trousers with his free hand. "Or I'll give your coat to my TARDIS as a snack."

The Doctor opens his mouth in shock rather than preparation. "You wouldn't."

"It would probably give her indigestion," the Master agrees. "Well?"

The Doctor shifts his weight to both knees and leans forward, and then proceeds to demonstrate enthusiastically his talent for a focused application of his mouth. The Master lets himself moan as the Doctor swallows him down, the hot pleasure of the act overriding his reticence, his inclination to hold back, to _win._ Just having the Doctor here, on his knees, tilting his head back and breathing out that slight whistle that means he's using his respiratory bypass--he puts both hands into the Doctor's hair and pulls, and the answering moan around his cock feels _fantastic._ And he thrusts and the Doctor just _takes_ it, all sarcasm and sneering moral patronizing gone when his tongue is busy elsewhere. It's fantastic and it's just and it's right and he reaches climax much sooner than he wants to, crying out and shuddering, totally spent.

"Mmm," the Doctor says thoughtfully, and gets to his feet. "Where is your bed?"

And a few minutes later he's naked on his own sheets, face being ground into the mattress as the Doctor uses one hand to pin both of the Master's at the small of his back, and the other to hold onto the Master's hip as he fucks him. And after that he's got those black wax candles on his end table, and after that the Doctor improvises some handcuffs with a handful of junk from his pocket and his sonic screwdriver, and after that, well, they are eventually tired enough to fall, exhausted, to sleep.

And when he wakes up, of course, the Doctor is gone, and he's found his old coat under the bed and taken it with him. And, because there is no justice in the world, he's taken the Master's velvet jacket as well. The one he _really likes._

The Master clenches his teeth and wonders in exactly what order their paths will cross again.

* * *

The Doctor understands the importance of presentation. The Master, with his single-minded focus on power, will never move beyond his knockoff Vincent Price look unless someone forces him.

Crushed velvet. In black. How stale! How uninteresting! How dark and pretentious!

How very, very like the Master. The Doctor sighs, places the jacket carefully on a hangar in the wardrobe, and then turns to straighten the shoulders on _his_ coat, the _nice_ one.

One of these days, the Master will get over his childish fantasies of trying to dominate the universe. And on that day, the Doctor plans to take him clothes shopping. At the thought, he smiles, then turns on his heel and heads toward the console room, adjusting the cat pin on his bright pink lapel as he goes.

* * *

Time Lords (most of them, anyway) have their priorities in order.


End file.
